Identities
Barbara Oakley
Personal Identity for a Flutist
Vector Logo/Brand Identity
Is it too embarrassing to post a logo you did for your mom? Probably would have been when I was 22 and right out of college (I might be a bit older), probably if you haven’t done anything for big brands (if you scroll down you’ll see work for brands like Amazon), but I have to put this one first because I think it’s the best logo I’ve designed! My mom is a flutist. Her logo is a flute. Simple and literal, sure, but anyone with even minor knowledge of the flute will immediately get it.
It ended up on her business card and other things but the impetus was a book my mom wrote about teaching the flute in elementary–secondary education: I designed the book, all of the diagrams of fingerings and everything else, back in 2016.
Personal Identity for a Flutist
Vector Logo/Brand Identity
Is it too embarrassing to post a logo you did for your mom? Probably would have been when I was 22 and right out of college (I might be a bit older), probably if you haven’t done anything for big brands (if you scroll down you’ll see work for brands like Amazon), but I have to put this one first because I think it’s the best logo I’ve designed! My mom is a flutist. Her logo is a flute. Simple and literal, sure, but anyone with even minor knowledge of the flute will immediately get it.
It ended up on her business card and other things but the impetus was a book my mom wrote about teaching the flute in elementary–secondary education: I designed the book, all of the diagrams of fingerings and everything else, back in 2016.
Bridge 2013 Brand
School’s Out Washington
Animated Logo & Typographic Branding
School’s Out Washington
Animated Logo & Typographic Branding
Leading into the annual The Bridge From School to Afterschool and Back’s printed piece, the distinctive geometric identity and layered typography evolved from early discussions about how various spokes in a wheel all could function together as one whole. The brand, as it scaled down to smaller, more functional elements, became focused on readability and legibility, an issue for the wide diversity of age groups that attend the conference.
Bridge Conference Icon Development
School’s Out Washington
Vector Logo & Brand Identity
Every client today, whether they genuinely care or not, wants to make sure diversity is reflected in their brand, the easiest route being stock photography — buy a few grinning images, make sure white males make up a small portion, then tick the diversity box, sit back, and relax.
School’s Out Washington is a bit different in that diversity is always at the forefront, more than PR: their core mission and “The Bridge From School to Afterschool and Back” conference they put on annually holds as a primary concern the increased equality in services provided to the wide diversity of afterschool programs across Washington State, from Native reservations in the rural east to refugees in Seattle’s few remaining affordable apartments. The identity for this conference, in the 5 iterations presented (seen below), always kept at the forefront this meeting of diverse threads. SOWA ended up picking the third option, the simplest and boldest, showing the meeting of two abstract shapes — the arc of the bridge created in the negative space between them.
School’s Out Washington
Vector Logo & Brand Identity
Every client today, whether they genuinely care or not, wants to make sure diversity is reflected in their brand, the easiest route being stock photography — buy a few grinning images, make sure white males make up a small portion, then tick the diversity box, sit back, and relax.
School’s Out Washington is a bit different in that diversity is always at the forefront, more than PR: their core mission and “The Bridge From School to Afterschool and Back” conference they put on annually holds as a primary concern the increased equality in services provided to the wide diversity of afterschool programs across Washington State, from Native reservations in the rural east to refugees in Seattle’s few remaining affordable apartments. The identity for this conference, in the 5 iterations presented (seen below), always kept at the forefront this meeting of diverse threads. SOWA ended up picking the third option, the simplest and boldest, showing the meeting of two abstract shapes — the arc of the bridge created in the negative space between them.
Amazon Surprise! Identity & Brand Book
Amazon Surprise!
Branding, Structuring, Writing, Organizing
After designing 150+ greeting cards for Amazon’s Surprise! gifting app, Josh’s next one-man-band task was branding it. While many directions were explored, the jaunty present with a big bow seemed to match the tone of the arrow/smilie under the Amazon “a,” one of its primary jobs to simply fit in amidst a very large family of other sub-brands.
Following guidelines set up for their other internal brand books, Josh developed a brief but dense set of guidelines, writing and structuring all the copy which described not just how to implement the core brand but how to develop new cards.
Amazon Surprise!
Branding, Structuring, Writing, Organizing
After designing 150+ greeting cards for Amazon’s Surprise! gifting app, Josh’s next one-man-band task was branding it. While many directions were explored, the jaunty present with a big bow seemed to match the tone of the arrow/smilie under the Amazon “a,” one of its primary jobs to simply fit in amidst a very large family of other sub-brands.
Following guidelines set up for their other internal brand books, Josh developed a brief but dense set of guidelines, writing and structuring all the copy which described not just how to implement the core brand but how to develop new cards.
Ferrosi Branding
Outdoor Research
Logo & Typographic Exploration
Outdoor Research, as their name suggests, creates high performance gear for athletes and the athletically inclined whose sports take them to places like icy mountaintops. Their Ferrosi brand of lightweight apparel that holds up under extremely strenuous conditions — the name itself conjuring up iron and agility — found its visual voice in a feather/hammer F icon, the feather optically holding up surprisingly well at small sizes.
Outdoor Research
Logo & Typographic Exploration
Outdoor Research, as their name suggests, creates high performance gear for athletes and the athletically inclined whose sports take them to places like icy mountaintops. Their Ferrosi brand of lightweight apparel that holds up under extremely strenuous conditions — the name itself conjuring up iron and agility — found its visual voice in a feather/hammer F icon, the feather optically holding up surprisingly well at small sizes.
Branding Explorations
2015 WISH Qatar
Vector Iconography
The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) needed a distinctive brand for its annual conference in Doha, Qatar, a city marked by unique and innovative architectural approaches but also holding a rich history of Islamic art. None of these were used but you can see in the video at right how the final brand evolved from these first iterations.
2015 WISH Qatar
Vector Iconography
The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) needed a distinctive brand for its annual conference in Doha, Qatar, a city marked by unique and innovative architectural approaches but also holding a rich history of Islamic art. None of these were used but you can see in the video at right how the final brand evolved from these first iterations.
WRAP Icon Development
School’s Out Washington
Vector Logo & Brand Identity
The Washington Regional Afterschool Project (WRAP), a project funded by School’s Out Washington, focuses on providing resources to underfunded and underserved afterschool programs in various parts of Washington State, bringing unique plans and strategies to individual communities.
The 4 logos presented all emphasized different aspects of WRAP: the first below showed a metamorphosis into a complete student; the second a geometric cube playing on the idea of gifts and the name WRAP; the third, a focus on care and the soft edges of being human; and the fourth, which they chose to finalize as the actual logo, showed the dance of two threads coming together to make a coherent whole.
School’s Out Washington
Vector Logo & Brand Identity
The Washington Regional Afterschool Project (WRAP), a project funded by School’s Out Washington, focuses on providing resources to underfunded and underserved afterschool programs in various parts of Washington State, bringing unique plans and strategies to individual communities.
The 4 logos presented all emphasized different aspects of WRAP: the first below showed a metamorphosis into a complete student; the second a geometric cube playing on the idea of gifts and the name WRAP; the third, a focus on care and the soft edges of being human; and the fourth, which they chose to finalize as the actual logo, showed the dance of two threads coming together to make a coherent whole.
Logos
Various Brands
Vector Icons & Logotypes
What makes a good logo? Anyone who spouts off criteria based on aesthetics or visual elements is missing the point: great logos are created out of what makes a brand unique, out of their story, their heritage, their vision, their audaciousness.
Various Brands
Vector Icons & Logotypes
What makes a good logo? Anyone who spouts off criteria based on aesthetics or visual elements is missing the point: great logos are created out of what makes a brand unique, out of their story, their heritage, their vision, their audaciousness.
Josh Oakley has created entire brand systems, directing every visual element that a consumer or employee might touch, and he’s created logos for a single product or single use.
These examples for brands like Coca-Cola, MTV, Zumiez, and Jones Soda reflect. No matter what, the goal is to make your project stand out from the herd.
These examples for brands like Coca-Cola, MTV, Zumiez, and Jones Soda reflect. No matter what, the goal is to make your project stand out from the herd.